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"We ramped up our schedule to try to contend for the [Washington Catholic Athletic Conference] title," first-year head coach Jenna Ries said. "The girls didn't hang their heads on the loss. They recognized St. Mary's is a better team and figured they could come in here today and produce."

Holy Cross (1-1) showed no signs of a hangover, striking early and often. It forced numerous turnovers and rarely allowed the Bulldogs to generate a sustained attack.

Junior Meagan Taylor got things rolling as she scored less than two minutes into the contest. Sophomore Shannon Gallagher (three goals) found the net twice and Cat Raff (two goals) struck once over the ensuing nine minutes. The Tartans led, 4-0, just 11 minutes, 3 seconds into the game.

After leading 5-2 late in the first half, University of Virginia-bound senior Katie Slater scored three consecutive goals to put the game out of reach.

"It was a huge turnaround from [Monday] since we lost by a lot," said Slater, who led all scorers with three goals. "Our transition game was a lot better. ... We have been doing a lot of running and people are realizing it's paying off in our midfield transition."

Added Ries: "We need to work harder with certain moments offensively. But this team is in really good shape, literally. They are incredibly fit. We just talked about how to swarm the ball."

Raff, Cristina McCarthy, Caroline McCormick and Danielle Lukish combined to account for the Tartans 6 second half goals.

Junior midfielder Nicole Aust had a hand in all three of the Bulldogs goals. She scored twice midway through the first half and assisted on Emma Anderson's tally with 13 minutes, 25 seconds remaining in the game.

"We are very, very young," Bullis head coach Kathleen Lloyd said. "A lot of the girls have played lacrosse before, but not at this level. They have to get used to all the little intricacies of the game. .... We had a hard time getting the ball down field and when we got it into our offensive half, we turned it over."